Hugo Chavez was as colorful as he was polarizing. Celebrating his 10th year in power four years ago, he held a jewel-encrusted sword of his hero, 19th-century revolutionary Simon Bolivar, and reminded a Caracas crowd what he was about.

"There is no other path to redemption for the human being than socialism," the Venezuelan president said, flanked by like-minded Latin American leaders helping him mark his anniversary.

After his death on Tuesday, detractors and fans had plenty to say about his fiery character and leftist pursuits, and it's hard to remember they're talking about the same guy.

He wrecked Venezuela's economy and trounced on democratic institutions and people's liberties, some say. He improved the lives of the poor and rightly stood up against "imperialist" nations, say others.

One of the more interesting tributes came from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who declared on his Farsi-language presidential website that Chavez was a great leader who will "resurrect" along with Jesus.

How many different ways can people look at Chavez? Here are a few:

Champion of the poor

Chavez, who led virtually uninterrupted from 1999 until his death, launched big poverty-reduction programs and paid for them with Venezuelan oil income. The programs worked on measurable levels, fans say.

The percentage of Venezuelans living under the poverty line declined from a peak of 62% in 2003 to 29% in 2009, according to World Bank statistics. Between 2001 and 2007, illiteracy fell from 7% to 5%.

"I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place," Stone posted to Twitter this week. "Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chavez will live forever in history. My friend, rest finally in a peace long earned."

Then there's the discounted heating oil that Chavez would supply to the poor in the U.S. Northeast through Venezuela's national oil company Citgo. Detractors say it was a cynical poke at the U.S. government, which he considered his imperialist enemy. But agencies helping the poor in the United States took the oil.

Economy destroyer

Critics say Chavez ended up hurting all Venezuelans by wrecking the economy. One way he did this, they say, was to nationalize some companies and interfere in others, thereby scaring off foreign investment.

Under his brand of socialism, dubbed Chavismo, oil specialists were fired and replaced by party loyalists, and foreign oil contracts were radically altered or canceled, making investment in Venezuela risky business for international firms.

"These factors have really led to shortages in basic staples. So, Venezuelans for example suffer from a lack of, in some cases, baby diapers, or flour, or corn meal ... so this is just an example of the distortions in the economy that have been a result of Chavismo," Kathryn Rooney Vera of Bulltick Capital told CNN.

Chavez left Venezuela saddled with high inflation - 22.2% year-on-year in January, according to the Central Bank of Venezuela. Some analysts say the country's economy is in tatters, as it had to devalue its currency 30% to the U.S. dollar last month.

Enemy of human rights, democratic institutions

Critics contend Chavez became increasingly authoritarian, gradually turning formerly independent institutions - such as the judiciary, the electoral authorities and the military - into partisan loyalists.

Human Rights Watch this week issued a report slamming Chavez for undercutting "the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights."

Foe of the media

Chavez increasingly used legislation to clamp down on broadcasters and other media. His government relentlessly went after opposition broadcaster Globovision, accusing it of violations ranging from failure to pay taxes to disregarding a media responsibility law.

"The Chavez government ... expanded the number of government-run TV channels from one to six, while taking aggressive steps to reduce the availability of media outlets that engage in critical programming," the HRW report says.

Enemy of the United States, "imperialist" influences

Both critics and fans like to point out Chavez's prickly relationship with the U.S. government.

Remember his devil speech at the 2006 U.N. General Assembly? In one of his most memorable insults, Chavez said of President George W. Bush: "The devil came here yesterday. Yesterday, the devil came here, right here, right here. And it smells of sulfur still today."

"We spoke for over an hour. He said he was happy 2 finally meet someone Bush hated more than him," Moore tweeted this week.

Last year, Chavez said the United States could be using cancer as a weapon against him.

"It's very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America," he said in a speech to the military, according to a Bloomberg News report. "Would it be so strange that they've invented technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?"

At a summit in November 2007, his repeated attempts to interrupt resulted in King Juan Carlos of Spain saying to him, "Why don't you shut up?"

In 2011, Chavez suggested that capitalism had killed off civilization on Mars.

"I have always said, have heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but perhaps capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived, and finished that planet," he said on state TV, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

It might have endeared him to some. But Christopher Sabatini, editor-in-chief of the policy journal Americas Quarterly, suggests Chavez had a more cynical reason to say these things.

"President Chavez cleverly avoided international criticism and oversight by angrily asserting national sovereignty, stoking anti-American suspicions and at times behaving like a buffoon. All three worked particularly well," Sabatini wrote.

soundoff(15 Responses)

Steven Harnack

Quick to blame Chavez for shortages in Venezuala but shouldn't blame be shared by those who use their powers to punish those who don't cow to their demands? Like the wife beater's "see what you made me do to you?"?

Who knows who chavez really was but all i know is that nothing good comes from these people. yeah he is dead alright but the person he left in charge is twice as worst so what good does he death brings?!?

No excuse for the crimes and atrocities he and his supporters subjected on a once very peaceful nation. His legacy is an embarrassment of how damaging poor leadership can be. Venezuela is lucky he dead, Cuba....not so lucky.

Chavez stole from the somewhat rich and poor people to pay the greedy human beings that support him. The rest he kept for himself as you can clearly see from all the money that he had in swiss banks and the real estate that he had....

About This Blog

This blog – This Just In – will no longer be updated. Looking for the freshest news from CNN? Go to our ever-popular CNN.com homepage on your desktop or your mobile device, and join the party at @cnnbrk, the world's most-followed account for news.